


You're Lucky You Made It

by Shaicarus



Series: Multiverse Theory (Y'all're ENABLERS) [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: AU: Prompto lives in Tenebrae, AU: no prophecy, And just screwing with things in general, Brief Mention of Vomit, Bullying, Category and such will likely change too, Gen, I haven't watched Brotherhood yet, Only in one chapter though, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, So I'm making up the timeline, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-30 10:22:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10161068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaicarus/pseuds/Shaicarus
Summary: Prompto stared at the newspaper, clenched in a white knuckled grip that wrinkled the pages.MAGITEK SOLDIER UNMASKEDThere was a picture beneath the headline, of a Magitek infantryman with its face plate torn off, to reveal a surprisingly human face beneath. A face that looked remarkably like Prompto's.





	1. Prologue: Let's start at the very beginning

**Author's Note:**

> So, in If the Ring Fits, there was one AU where Prompto lived in Tenebrae, was buddies with Luna, and was working as...basically Ravus's PA. That AU, along with the Fail Bus AU, attracted some interest and I decided 'why not?'
> 
> Now, I'm gonna be honest with all of you. I am VERY SLOW when it comes to fanfiction. And very flaky. I'm actually kinda excited about this one, though, so hopefully I'll keep at it. (all encouragement is welcome. and I encourage people to shout out suggestions.) But so far I know BASICALLY NOTHING about how this is gonna go. Will there be pairings? Fuck if I know. How many other characters are gonna show up? Thbbbppppt, ask someone else, 'cause I have no clue. What am I doing? Saying 'fuck it all,' that's what.
> 
> Anyway, here we have the prologue. The very tiny prologue. I only posted this part separately because it's written in a noticeably different style than the true chapter one, and I figured it'd be kinda jarring if it was submitted as one chapter.  
> (also I had Jenny O. music stuck in my head when I typed the fic title  
> and I guess if anyone's curious, I have a [tumblr](https://shaicarus.tumblr.com)? But you're not going to find much there that you won't also find here. I also [roleplay Noct on tumblr](https://outofmychair.tumblr.com). It's fun. He's a dork.)

When he was an infant, he was smuggled out of Niflheim, wrapped in a blanket with his arm swathed in bandages to hide the barcode imprinted there. He was given to the Argentums, a Lucian family. They called him Prompto, he called them Mama and Papa, and they belonged to each other. If they were ever aware of where he came from or just how unusual his adoption was, they never said anything about it. His mother worked as an EMT and his father as a banker. They were good, well-meaning, average people.

Prompto was four years old when an opportunity for his father to have a better job opened up across the map. They packed up Prompto, his toys, and most of the things in the house, and off they went to Tenebrae. It made little difference to Prompto, whose memories of Lucis were young and faded easily.

His mother could have stopped working if she wanted to. She didn't--she said she would go batty if she couldn't fill her time--but she did work less, so she could drop Prompto off at school herself most mornings, and pick him up on some afternoons. So she could watch him grow and feel like she was actually _there_ for his life.

He was a solitary child, clinging to his mother's pants in public and keeping to himself in class, even if he watched his classmates like there was a window between them and he was trying to figure out how to break it.

He was eight when his parents gave him a camera--plastic, disposable, maybe ten gil, but that wasn't the important part--and he loved it. It went everywhere with him, until it ran out of film and his father took it away to get it developed when he wasn't looking, deftly leaving an identical replacement in its spot.

He learned through trial and error, for the most part. The first lessons were simple. Faces were good, so long as he wasn't looking up someone's nose. Faces were better if they weren't paying attention to him. Nothing looked like what it was supposed to be if he moved too much. The more complicated lessons came later, but they were some very nice building blocks. He was only nine by the time his parents decided he could be trusted with an actual camera.

Prompto was ten when a classmate finally grabbed his arm and stared hard at the barcode that he had always carefully not questioned. She squinted at it before laughing and asking, "What, did your parents get you for half-off somewhere?"

He used his allowance to buy a pair of gloves at a thrift store that afternoon. His parents didn't question it. Instead they looked…sad. He continued to carefully not question it.

When he was twelve years old, he found a lanky, half-grown dog wandering the street as he walked home from school. As with many things, the dog changed everything.


	2. Soften a bit until we all just get along

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thiiiiisssss is more like it. I like this one much better. Also I really like writing about dogs?

Prompto was pretty sure she was a pure breed, and she looked far too pampered to be a stray, though her pale coat was grimy and she looked nervous, so Prompto could only assume she didn't live in the area. Feeling sorry for her, he lured her back to his house with half a bag of potato chips. He didn't let her _eat_ the potato chips, but he did give her a leftover pork chop from last night's dinner, and he figured she liked that more than she would have liked the chips anyway.

After that, she was more than happy to let him pick her up, and she nuzzled her chin contently against his shoulder. At least until he carried her into the bathroom. Her eyes locked onto the bathtub, and immediately she started whining, squirming in his hold like she was worried he was going to skin her and turn her into a fur coat.

"Hey, hey, come on, just--please stop wiggling, I need to--no, don't!" His grip on her tightened when she nearly wiggled right out of his grasp, and finally he got the bathroom door closed with his elbow. He set the dog down once her path of escape was closed off, and he tried very hard not to feel guilty as she tried to crawl behind the toilet to hide.

"Nope!" he declared abruptly, and he scratched her ears. "You can't make me feel bad for this. You're gross right now." He leaned over the tub and fussed with the water until it was the right temperature. Behind him, as the tub slowly filled, the dog slowly melted to the floor with her paws over her muzzle.

…Okay, he still felt sort of bad. He was only human. So to distract himself, he raided the cupboards. They didn't have any dog shampoo, of course, but he did manage to find a bar of soap that he was _pretty sure_ was organic and it didn't smell awful. He held it out to her and she didn't seem to object to the smell, at any rate.

And then…it began. He scooped her up and dumped her into the tub in one impressively coordinated movement, though he landed on behind anyway. She landed with a slosh and stared up at him with wide, betrayed eyes, which only got wider and even more betrayed as he began bailing water over her with a cup.

Lathering up fifteen pounds of reluctant, wiggling dog with a bar of soap was a comedy of errors, and by the time she was soaped and rinsed, Prompto was just as drenched as she was.

She sulked under a towel in the family room, at least until he started feeding her pieces of beef jerky.

*

The family computer chugged laboriously, completely drowning out the sound of the dog snoring on Prompto's lap as he browsed. He looked up when the front door opened and he waited just long enough for his mom to step inside and close the door before he said, "I'm not keeping her."

"Not keeping--Prompto." His mom was giving him and the dog a Look.

"I just said I'm not keeping her!" he protested. "I found her and she needed a bath and some food, and now I'm trying to figure out where she lives." He flapped a hand at the computer.

His mom sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "You promise?"

Prompto nodded rapidly, dragging one finger in an X over his chest. "Promise. I just couldn't leave her out there."

"No, I suppose you couldn't," his mom agreed, exasperation melting into a gentle smile. "Just please remember to clean up after her."

"Duh, I know."

*

The dog--he called her Pretty Girl, for lack of any sort of name--slept on his bed, upside down and with her legs sprawled out in all directions. Her tongue lolled, she snored, and she started violently twitching and fake-running now and then, and on the whole there was hardly enough room in the bed for Prompto himself. It was some of the best sleep he ever had. It was barely even ruined when he woke up and realized she had peed all over his blanket.

Well, good thing it was the weekend.

He wrestled his bedspread into the washing machine before he scooped the dog up and carried her to the pet shop so he could get a bag of dog food and some potty training pads.

*

"Come on, Pretty Girl, hold still…" Prompto coaxed, camera aimed and ready. She paused, staring at him, and he clicked the button. There was a flash, and she bounced to her feet afterwards, yapping at the camera like it was her best friend and she very much expected it to play with her.

Setting the camera aside, Prompto flopped down onto his side and rolled onto his back, yapping right back at her. She danced back and forth on her front legs, until her paw landed on his face and she threw her head back and howled. It was a tiny, warbling noise and Prompto couldn't help but mimic it back at her. Yapping in delight, she pounced, landing on his stomach and forcibly ejecting all of the air from his lungs.

"Having fun in here?" his dad asked, peering around the doorframe into Prompto's room.

Wheezing on the floor, Prompto flashed him a thumbs up.

*

Prompto's bed was dry the next morning, and Pretty Girl's tail was in his mouth. He fed her and took her outside--she was already reasonably well trained in that regard, since buying a _leash_ had not occurred to him and yet she stuck pretty close to his side--before he started up the computer and started searching for missing dogs again.

And he got results.

He stared blankly at the article, and the he looked down at the dog as she rolled back and forth on her back like a caterpillar and chewed on an empty paper towel roll.

"Pryna?" he called cautiously.

She rolled over onto her belly and cocked her head at him, the cardboard hanging out one side of her mouth.

"Pryna!" he called again, more enthusiastically.

She barked at him once, the roll falling to the floor, before she bounced to her feet and trotted over to him. She stopped in front of the desk chair and hopped up to put her front paws on his knees.

Prompto stared at her and gave her a slow pat on the head, before he turned to look towards the kitchen, " _ **MAMA!**_ "

There was a clatter in the kitchen, before his mom stumbled into the room. "What?" she asked, sharp and panicked. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"Mama!" He picked Pryna up and brandished her in his mom's direction. "I found the princess's puppy!" Pryna dangled in his hold, tail wiggling and head cocked curiously to one side.

His mom stared at him. "You…found what?"

Setting Pryna down on his lap, Prompto shoved the chair away from the desk and flapped a hand at the computer. "Come look! It says right here, one of her dogs slipped her collar, and there's a picture, and she answered to her name!"

His mom came over to look over the article, and then looked down slowly at the dog. Pryna yapped up at her cheerfully, cradled on Prompto's lap like a stuffed animal and content with life.

"You…found the princess's puppy," his mom confirmed slowly.

"This just got so much more complicated," Prompto groaned, leaning forward to bonk his forehead against the top of Pryna's head. She squirmed around in his lap until she could lick his face.

*

The palace was amazing. And enormous. And just staring at it was a little bit terrifying. Prompto's mom offered to go with him, but he insisted on handling it himself.

Which was how he found himself being grilled by a guard, as he assured the man that no, he was not trying to _ransom_ Pryna, he just wanted to bring her home, no, really, she wasn't hurt or sick, she was perfectly fine, he didn't even want a reward, _he just wanted to bring her home_.

He was escorted inside after that, and told to sit on a couch that was far too comfortable in some sort of lobby that was far too pristine, while the guard picked Pryna up and carried her away.

Prompto sat quietly on the couch, hands clenched together between his knees because he was not going to touch anything, because then he couldn't break anything or get anything dirty. He sat there for only a few minutes before he heard footsteps rapidly approaching, alongside the familiar sound of claws on the floor.

Pryna bounded into the room first, followed almost immediately by--

"P-Princess Lunafreya!" Prompto shot to his feet so he could bow properly.

"You--There's no need for that. You're the boy who brought Pryna home?" the princess asked, and Prompto finally dared to look up at her.Even slightly out of breath and holding her skirt off of the floor, she was lovely. His heart thudded heavily in his chest, and he thought, _Oh no._

Slowly, he nodded. "Y-yes, Your Highness."

Without further ado, she launched herself at him, engulfing him in a hug. Prompto was pretty sure he stopped breathing.

She was _beautiful_ , and she smelled like flowers, and she was sixteen, and she was hugging him like he was _worth it_ , and really, how was he supposed to deal with that?

Slowly, she leaned back, her hands resting gently on his shoulders. "Thank you," she said, her voice soft but so sincere.

"Y-you're welcome, Your Highness," he stammered, his fingers fisting in the material of his pants. He couldn't look her in the face, and instead stared just past her ear so it wouldn't look like he was avoiding looking at her, because _what if that was rude_?

She laughed gently, her fingers squeezing briefly before she let go of his shoulders. "Thank you," she repeated once more. "You're certain you wouldn't like anything in return?"

"I-I-I'm sure, Your Highness," he mumbled, hands clenching against his thighs so they would stop shaking. "I--I just wanted to make sure she got home safe."

"That was very kind of you," she assured him. Her eyes were soft as she watched him. "Will you tell me your name?"

"P-Prompto Argentum, Your Highness." He was going to have a heart attack, he was pretty sure. His heart was going to stop, and he was going to drop dead right there on the princess's dress.

"It was very nice to meet you, Prompto." She set one hand on his shoulder again, fingers just grazing it before falling back to her side.

He stared up at her dumbly, eyes the size of saucers. It took a few seconds before he stammered out, "Th-thank you, Your Highness."

She laughed softly once more, mouth hidden behind the fingers of one hand. She bent down and picked Pryna up, like she didn't even care about getting fur on the white and silver dress, and she held the dog out for Prompto to say a proper goodbye to her.

When he was properly dismissed, the walk home was a blur, and once he was there, he was pretty sure he told his parents every single detail of the encounter at least a dozen times.

He was equally sure he made an idiot of himself, though. It seemed pretty likely. It was one of his skills. He probably made an idiot of himself, but she had been nice about it, at least, even if she probably wouldn't even remember his hair color by the time morning rolled around.

He stared up at his ceiling in bed that night, thoughts churning, until he finally nodded off to sleep.

The next morning, he was woken up by the most peculiar alarm clock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can see, Prompto met Princess Lunafreya and his kokoro INSTANTLY went doki doki. This should not surprise anyone.


	3. Though the road may wander

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy crap a fic I'm working on ACTUALLY HAS AN UPDATE???? AND I KNOW WHAT I WANNA DO WITH THE NEXT CHAPTER, KINDA???? holy shit  
> there's no Ravus yet. next chapter, I promise.
> 
> anyway, I apologize if the transition at the end seems really abrupt, but it was already way longer than I expected, and I didn't wanna go into 'third verse, same as the first.'

Prompto woke up to the sound of barking outside his window. He rolled out of bed and stared out his window, and Pryna stared back at him from the lawn, dancing on her front paws and barking. If nothing else, his dad was at work already and his mom could probably sleep through an air raid siren, so he wasn't worried about that.

Groaning, Prompto dragged himself to the front door and opened it. Happy as could be, Pryna trotted inside and started bouncing in circles around the family room.

"D'you want some breakfast?" he sighed, even as he was already pulling out a bowl and dragging out the bag of dog food. He filled the bowl and set it down in front of her before he set about getting his own breakfast.

As his pastries toasted, he moseyed back into his bedroom to put on his school uniform, emerging back into the kitchen just as the toaster popped, and found Pryna sitting by her empty bowl and staring at him as she licked her teeth.

"You had yours," he stated flatly, and he pulled his pastries from the toaster. He ate in record time, combed his hair and brushed his teeth, grabbed his backpack, and as he stepped out the front door he called, "Pryna, come on!"

She bounded out the door behind him. It was a bit early to leave for school, but suddenly he had to make an unexpected detour. Completely and utterly innocent, Pryna bounced around his feet…and then took off at a gallop.

" _PRYNA!_ "

Prompto took off after her, his legs pumping and his backpack slapping against his back. Pryna looped back around, bolted in a lopsided circle around him, and then continued racing ahead.

Before he knew it, Prompto had sprinted the entire way from home to the palace in his efforts to keep Pryna in sight, where he finally got a chance to slow down and stagger to a halt. He doubled over, hands on his knees and chest heaving as he wheezed for breath. Sweat dripped down his neck and the sides of his face, plastering his hair to his forehead.

Pryna, happy as could be, _finally_ sat down and stared up at him, tail wiggling. Slowly, Prompto straightened back up, still panting. Lifting a hand, he pointed as imperious a finger as he could manage towards the palace gate. "You gotta go home, Pryna."

Cocking her head to one side, she got back to her feet and reared back onto her hind legs, her front paws balancing on his knees. Prompto leaned down to pet her, giving her ears a vigorous scratching, before he pointed towards the gate once again. "Go home."

With an aggrieved huff, she landed back on all fours and turned to trot back through the gates, squeezing through the bars like it was no big deal.

Prompto shook his head and carried on towards school. He got there earlier than usual, considering he ran so much of the distance, but at least it gave him time to try and clean up a bit in the bathroom before class started.

*

"Someone's dog is running around the schoolyard." Ordinarily, Prompto didn't pay much attention to what his classmates talked about (he thought about getting to know them, now and then, but then the words _half off_ rang in his head and he changed his mind). That simple sentence immediately attracted his attention, though. "Any ideas whose it is?"

Prompto charged out the front door and was almost immediately accosted by a white puffball racing around at mach six. She reared up onto her hind legs, gave the fabric of his pants a tug, and then took off. With an emphatic groan, Prompto took off after her again, lest she race herself right into a ditch. He was pretty sure a few of the other students were staring at him, but there was no time to dwell on that.

"You're gonna kill me," he panted later, as he slowed to a stop by the palace gate.

And then he snapped his mouth shut when he heard a voice calling, "Pryna?"

The pup squeezed back through the gate to meet the princess, and Prompto began to hurry on his way. He looked back just in time to meet the princess's gaze, and she lifted her hand to wave. Cautiously, Prompto waved back, before he turned and hurried on his way.

*

"You seem distracted," Prompto's mom remarked that night at dinner, as Prompto prodded his peas back and forth across his plate, staring at it but not really seeing it.

He looked up sharply, blinking at her. "It was just a weird day at school," he replied.

"Is everything alright?" she asked, slowly setting her fork down.

"Huh? Oh, no, yeah, everything's fine," he assured her hurriedly, waving one hand in dismissal.

His mom eyed him thoughtfully for a moment, before she nodded. "If you're sure, dear."

*

It was Tuesday morning, and Prompto woke up to the sound of barking. Grumbling, he hauled himself out of bed and dragged himself to the front door. He filled a bowl with dog food as Pryna raced around the room, and as she ate, he changed into a tank top and a pair of shorts.

"I learned my lesson after yesterday," he informed her around bites of his own breakfast. "No sprinting in my school uniform." Instead, it was folded and shoved into his backpack.

She wagged her tail at him contently, her bowl empty already. Prompto rolled his eyes at her and stepped into his shoes, before he ushered her out the door.

Much like the morning before, it was a mad sprint to keep Pryna in sight, until she once again disappeared between the bars of the palace gate. From there, panting and sweating, Prompto continued his trek to school at a much more leisurely pace, and took a quick shower in the locker room before he tugged his uniform on.

*

"Pryna--Pryna, no--come on, I'm not dressed for this!" Prompto pleaded as the pup bounced between his legs and then carried on along the street. He groaned like he was actually dying as she simply picked up speed and continued racing down the street, forcing him to sprint after her.

When the princess waved him as he passed the palace gate, that time he managed to actually pause and *look at her* as he waved back, before he hurried on his way at a sprightly walk.

*

It was Wednesday afternoon, and Prompto detoured to the locker room and changed into his designated running clothes before he met Pryna in the school yard.

Once she slipped back through the palace gate, a familiar voice called, "Are you enjoying your run?"

Prompto ground to a halt so quickly he nearly fell flat on his face. He offered the least graceful bow imaginable as he stammered, "You-your Highness!"

Princess Lunafreya hid a smile behind one hand, Pryna cradled in her other arm. Hesitantly, Prompto returned the smile before he waved, offered one more bow, and continued on his way.

When he trotted into the house, he had to take a moment to lean against the door. His mom glanced at him from the kitchen and had to do a double-take.

"Where's your uniform?" she wondered, bemused.

"In my backpack." He reached back, giving it a pat. "I thought I'd give jogging a try."

His mom's answering smile was slightly bewildered, but she offered a pleasant, "I'm glad to hear that," regardless.

*

It was Friday afternoon, and Prompto slowed as he approached the palace. Like every other time, Pryna slipped through the gate, and Prompto couldn't help but to wonder how she was going to go about it once she was too big to fit.

(He tried not to think about how she wouldn't be able to slip _out_ anymore, just as she wouldn't be able to slip in. He was not keen on the idea of losing his running buddy.)

As soon as he saw her, Prompto bowed and offered a mumbled, "Good afternoon, Your Highness."

For a moment, Princess Lunafreya looked startled, before she broke out in a beaming smile. "To you, as well," she returned, before she hefted Pryna into one arm, took hold of one of her front paws, and made her wave.

Prompto broke out into a grin before he could help himself.

*

Pryna, as it turned out, cared not for thing likes 'weekends' and 'days off.' She woke Prompto up bright and early on Saturday and, grumbling, he followed her down the road. He only went to the palace before he turned around, though.

That afternoon, on a hunch, he headed to the school, though. Just as he suspected, there she was, waiting for him impatiently.

"Your dog has a freakishly good internal clock," Prompto informed Princess Lunafreya on the way home, after the customary greeting.

"I rather suspect it goes well with her ability to get out of the palace unnoticed," the princess returned. "Though it means no one needs to walk her and she always comes back safely, so I suppose I shan't complain."

Prompto wasn't sure if that was supposed to be a compliment to him or not, but he felt sort of warm regardless.

*

It was Wednesday again when Prompto finally figured out that if he just stubbornly kept up a steady jog, Pryna would eventually, _reluctantly_ slow down to trot beside him. At last, he could keep up a steady pace the entire way from home to school.

*

It was September when Prompto started packing his lunches to bring with him. Because really, if he ever wanted to be able to make it from his house to the school at an actual run without taking a break or keeling over, the slop the school served was probably not going to do him any favors.

*

"Just like clockwork," Lunafreya greeted fondly, and her smile was just as fond.

Prompto smiled down at the ground and rubbed the back of his head. "At least I'm punctual."

"I never need to worry about her being out after curfew."

Prompto laughed, sharp and startled, and clapped a hand over his mouth. When he looked up, the princess was beaming at him.

*

It was October, and he had to cinch his uniform belt tighter.

The weather was turning as autumn rolled in, and he eyed his running shorts dubiously as he tallied his allowance. It…was not a lot of money.

*

He was thirteen years old, and amongst video games and a cell phone that wasn't cracked across the middle, he unwrapped a set of thermal running clothes.

"I do pay attention occasionally," his mom informed him dryly.

*

It was November when, whining, Prompto thrust his school uniform into his mom's hands and pleaded, "Can you fix this? It's way too big."

He sort of regretted it after the forty-five minutes of standing still and getting poked with pins as his mom figured out how much it needed to be taken in.

*

"She's so angry," Prompto sighed, trying not to laugh, as he handed Pryna to Luna over the gate. She'd gotten _stuck_ halfway through just a few days ago, and since then she had refused to try again.

"She is a lady," Lunafreya reminded him primly. "She doesn't deal well with embarrassment."

Of course, Pryna then chased a falling leaf in spiraling circles until she fell over.

*

It was December and winter break was upon them. Tenebrae gleamed under a coat of snow, molten gold as the sun rose and set and silver in the moonlight.

Pryna, as it turned out, loved chasing snowballs. She was horrible at catching them and without fail she would get confused when it would hit the ground and disappear, but she loved them anyway.

Prompto threw a snowball one afternoon, not even paying attention, and then ground to a halt when he heard a squeal. His head snapped up, and he stared at Lunafreya as she shook her head, shaking snow from her hair.

Prompto felt himself go pale behind his winter running mask, all the blood leaving his face. Lunafreya blinked at him. And then, with very deliberate movements, she unlatched the gate, let Pryna in, and stepped out.

"I--I--I--" Prompto stammered incoherently, voice muffled behind the fleece.

A snowball walloped him upside the head and he yelped, his voice cracking halfway through.

Lunafreya couldn't quite hide a giggle behind her hand fast enough. She stopped pretending to try as he pouted at her, and instead laughed freely.

Prompto could only hold the pout for a few seconds before he was laughing along with her. He wasn't sure where he found the courage to throw a _second_ snowball at the princess, but he was glad he did.

He made it home half an hour late, and he had snow in very uncomfortable places. It was nice to know that even princesses weren't immune to the urge to shove snow down someone's shirt.

*

"Pryna. Sit."

Her rear end landed in the snow, tail wiggling back and forth.

"Pretty now."

She straightened up slightly, curled her tail around her hip, and daintily lifted one front paw off the ground.

"Look. Staaaay."

She blinked at him but dutifully held her pose, and Prompto clicked the button on his camera. He looked down at the screen just long enough to confirm that the picture had turned out well enough, before he exclaimed, "Good girl!"

She hopped to her feet and raced in a circle around him.

*

Lunafreya opened the gate to let Pryna trot through, and she watched Prompto expectantly as he shifted back and forth on his feet. Finally, he swung his backpack down from his back and plunged a hand in. "This is for you," he mumbled, as he brandished a flat package at her. "Happy Solstice."

"I don't have anything for you…" she lamented, hesitating.

He continued to brandish the package at her, until she closed her fingers around it. He continued fidgeting at she opened it, only glancing up when the sounds of tearing paper ceased.

Lunafreya was smiling gently down at the photo, in its simple white frame. Slowly, she lowered it, tucking it under one arm. She stepped through the gate, finally letting it close, and Prompto bit back a squeak as she pulled him into a hug. It took him a moment to return it.

*

"Here."

Prompto blinked at the shiny paper bag being brandished at him, and slowly closed his fingers around the handles.

"It's a bit late," Lunafreya continued, "but happy Solstice."

"You didn't hafta get me anything," Prompto pointed out, even as his curiosity won out and pulled the contents of the bag out, shucking aside the tissue paper.

A plush dog stared back at him. It bore a striking resemblance to Pryna, with gleaming glass eyes and faux fur that felt like petting a cloud.

Lunafreya opened her arms in preparation of the hug Prompto launched himself into.

*

The new year came, and winter break came to an end. January passed into February, and one of Prompto's classmates even asked him to the dance.

(The words 'half off' rang in his head, but it had been a few years. People changed.)

He worried the entire time that he looked like a garrula that someone had squeezed into a button down shirt and a tie, and then he had to stare at the pictures his mom took when he realized he looked…okay.

Nothing really came of the night, but it was fun enough for what it was. It was nice to know he could attract some attention.

*

It was May and school was finished for the summer. Prompto kept running. He couldn't imagine stopping, really.

He was on his way home one afternoon when Lunafreya met him outside the gate, a dark dog sitting at her heels and a basket over one of her arms.

"You are coming with me," she informed Prompto primly, an almost impish smile lurking at the corner of her lips.

"…Okay?"

"Put your hand on Umbra's head."

He obeyed the command as she did the same, and as Pryna crowded in close. He'd only seen Umbra in passing before; a tail or ears glimpsed through the gate, or pictures in the news. There was something unfathomable in his gaze.

Prompto's ears popped and he looked around at the flower field they were suddenly clustered in. Umbra yawned and flopped down in the flowers, petals fluttering around him. He sneezed one off of the end of his nose.

"…What."

Lunafreya laughed and set the basket down. "A lady holds her secrets close." She pulled a blanket out of the basket. "Join me for lunch?"

Prompto nodded dumbly. "…'Kay." He helped her spread the blanket out.

*

There was a photo tacked to Prompto's bedroom wall, of Luna sitting on a blanket in a sea of flowers. Her crown was made of dandelions and sylleblossoms and she presided over a court of Pryna and Umbra with a smile that could have put the sun to shame.

*

It was August, and Prompto joined the track team. They met three times a week after school, and Pryna met him at the street every time, napping with her muzzle on her paws. His teammates learned to stop questioning it.

He was _good_ at it, and between track practice, meets, donating free periods to the yearbook club, and afternoons with Luna, he was so happy he could have exploded.

He took first place for the first time in September, and he tacked the photo of him and his mom and his dad and his medal to the wall.

*

He was fourteen, staring in awe at the camera Luna presented him with. It used film, rather than a memory card, and he was already trying to figure out how he could turn part of his closet into a dark room. It was worth a fortune.

She smiled and reeled him into a hug when he burst into tears, the camera cradled carefully between them.

*

It was December and the semester was almost at a close. A bug had been making its way steadily through the student body, though Prompto swore he wouldn't catch it.

But he was out of breath and wheezing by the time he got to school that morning, and he felt off balance and clammy all day.

Halfway to the palace that afternoon, his vision began to swim, and he pitched forward into the snow. Pryna started barking fit to wake the dead, nosing at his hair, licking whatever parts of his face weren't hidden by his mask, tugging at his sleeves. Finally, she threw her head back and howled before she curled up on top of him.

Snow crunched nearby, and dark paws faded into his field of view. Umbra lowered his head, and Prompto looked into one endless eye before a cold nose touched his forehead.

The world flipped in six directions, and abruptly he was sprawled out in the snow elsewhere. He levered himself up onto his elbows just enough to vomit across the sidewalk, and he only just managed to roll onto his side so he wouldn't land face down in his own puke.

Luna crouched beside him, her eyes wide and worried. She turned away, her voice urgent as she spoke to the dogs, but Prompto couldn't really make out the words.

*

The world began to make sense again, slowly. Something was beeping steadily. He could hear his mom's voice having a one-sided conversation.

He cracked one eye open, cringed at the light, and then opened his eyes much more carefully. Blinking, he looked around the hospital room. His mom was on her phone, probably with his dad. Umbra was curled up in a tight ball in the corner, watching the room intently.

He met Prompto's eyes and got to his feet, startling an, "Oh!" out of his mom. She turned to look at the hospital bed.

"Hey, Mama," Prompto mumbled.

"Hey, dear," she returned softly, her face a mask of relief. She turned her attention back to the phone long enough to inform his dad, "He's awake," before she hung up.

Prompto…vaguely recalled passing out in the snow. Well enough that asking 'what happened?' seemed a bit redundant. Instead, he watched Umbra trot out of the room before he asked clumsily, "'s'it still Wednesday?"

"It's still Wednesday," his mom replied. "Your dad should be here in an hour or so. You'll be here overnight, but you'll be good to head home tomorrow."

He nodded slowly, and his eyes gradually drifted closed again.

*

Prompto woke up as someone took his hand, and he blinked up at Luna in sleepy befuddlement.

"I just wanted to make sure you were alright." She leaned down to kiss his forehead. "Go back to sleep."

He nodded sluggishly.

*

He slept the entirety of the next day away, other than waking up occasionally to use the bathroom and drink some water.

It wasn't until the next morning that he actually woke up, to the familiar sound of Pryna barking at the door. Wrapped up in his comforter, he trekked to the door to let her in and feed her, before he tumbled down on the couch and pulled the blanket over his head.

Pryna spent a few minutes trying to wrestle the blanket away from him, before she contented herself with hopping up to sleep on his hip until his mom finally woke up and wondered why there was a dog in the house.

*

Prompto let Pryna in the next morning and found a baggie tied to her collar with a note. A small pouch of tea, and the note read simply ' _Feel better!_ ' with a sketch of a sylleblossom.

There was no one there to see his goofy grin, so he didn't bother hiding it.

*

After nearly a week of doing little more than sleeping and whining about his eyes and nose running like a leaky faucet, at last Prompto was declared healthy. He was pretty sure Pryna nearly passed out from joy when he actually got dressed and followed her out the door again. He was sore after the first few runs, but it felt good all the same.

*

Prompto was fifteen. His best friend was his kingdom's princess. He was one of the best runners on the track team. Now and then, his classmates paid him to take photos on the cheap for them. He was pretty sure his life was perfect.

It rapidly crashed down around his feet after that.


	4. Something has changed within me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, so, this took so much longer than I expected. Sooowwwwyyyyy  
> explanation: I work as a freelance writer. considering my JOB is writing and my hobby is writing, I need to prioritize carefully or I'm going to get burnt out and I can't afford to do that. So a lot of my hobby writing is roleplaying on Noct's blog.
> 
> I have a loose idea of where things are gonna go after this, including a loose idea of pairings. However, as a polyamorous person, I am very fond of 'why don't we just have everyone kiss everyone?' so that might wind up happening to some extent  
> and you're welcome to leave suggestions for stuff you wanna see in comments.
> 
> If you have issues with bullying, maybe skip this chapter, or at least jump all the way down to the last section.

Prompto woke up to the sound of the emergency bells ringing. He hurled himself out of bed, still half-asleep and stumbling into jeans and sneakers and a sweatshirt with the lights off and his eyes half-closed before he stumbled into his parents' room. His cell phone rang and he yanked it from his pocket, answering it with a muddled, "H'lo?"

"Oh, thank gods," his dad sighed on the other line. "You and your mom are alright?"

"'m wakin' her up now," he mumbled. "Shelter's just down the street?"

"Yours is," his dad confirmed.

"What about _yours_?" Prompto asked.

"There's one under the office. I'll…see you when I see you. Keep an eye on your mom."

"Got it, Papa." Prompto hung up before his voice could start doing that obnoxious shivery thing and shoved his phone back into his pocket.

"Mama!" He landed on the bed on his knees and started shaking her shoulders.

She woke with a start. "What? What is it? What's--" Her voice died and her face went pale as she realized what the noise in the background was. She scrambled quickly out of bed and into a pair of shoes.

They hurried out the front door, where the rest of their neighbors were making their way down the street, ushered along and kept in some semblance of order by a police officer, while the sounds of the sirens gradually became background noise. Prompto stood rooted to the spot on the sidewalk outside the house.

Something exploded in the distance, the ground rattling beneath their feet. Prompto stared as smoke began to rise in the direction of the palace. The officer grabbed his shoulder and ushered him forward.

*

Everything in the shelter passed in a blur of people crying, news reports delivered briefly and abruptly by the officer, and the head of the neighborhood watch urging them to stay calm.

A day and a half later, as Prompto staged elaborate photos with his phone to keep his neighbors' kids distracted, the shelter's door opened and an officer stepped inside.

The danger had passed. Some parts of the city were worse off than others, but the Niffs had been repelled. Prompto and his mother met his father at the house, and they cried and babbled at each other as if it had been weeks.

Their power was out and most of the windows on the street were broken, but all things considered, their neighborhood faired well. Soon enough they got a radio working, and the prince's voice crackled slightly as Prompto's dad adjusted the antenna.

"--and though the queen's passing pains us all, we remain unshaken. Despite Niflheim's best efforts, Tenebrae remains its own and we shall not be toppled."

The queen was dead.

Prompto was out the door and running for the palace in a heartbeat, his parents shouting after him.

*

Umbra met him at the gate. Or, at least, where the gate had been. Mangled metal hung from the hinges, and smoke still drifted lethargically skywards. Prompto put it out of his mind as best he could and laid a hand on the dog's head, and a moment later he found himself in the field. Pryna lifted her head from Luna's lap, but Luna's gaze remained locked on the trident in front of her.

"I am the Oracle," she observed eventually, her voice far away and even.

Slowly, Prompto knelt beside her and cautiously hooked an arm around her shoulders. She was stiff at first, but after a moment she turned to hide against his shoulder, her arms tightening around him like a vice. Her shoulders trembled, but she was silent.

*

It was getting dark, but Luna had passed out on his lap and Prompto couldn't bring himself to wake her up just yet.

Startled, he looked up at the sound of boots in the grass, and he stared upwards at the pri--the king.

"Your--" He cut himself off, unsure of whether he was supposed to say Your Highness or Your Majesty.

Ravus lifted a hand, waving the matter off. "'Sir' will suffice." But he hardly seemed to be paying any attention to Prompto, his attention instead focused on Luna. "She's holding up well enough?"

"Well enough, I guess, Sir," Prompto mumbled in reply, looking fixedly at the ground between Ravus's boots. He darted a glance upwards in time to see Ravus nod before he dropped to a knee. Prompto snatched his hands back as Ravus picked Luna up and straightened back to his full height. He adjusted her against his shoulder and ignored the trident for the moment.

"Umbra will see you home," he reported, before he turned and began to walk away.

Prompto stared after him, until Umbra stared into his eyes and nudged at his cheek.

*

Two days later, Prompto stared at the newspaper, clenched in a white knuckled grip that wrinkled the pages.

**MAGITEK SOLDIER UNMASKED**

There was a picture beneath the headline, of a Magitek infantryman with its face plate torn off, to reveal a surprisingly human face beneath. A face that looked remarkably like Prompto's, albeit a few years older and minus the freckles.

Slowly, very methodically, he crumpled the paper up into a ball and hurled it into the trashcan with enough force that the can nearly toppled over. Pryna jumped, abandoning her mostly empty bowl to instead sniff cautiously at the trashcan.

His parents were both working, and he was glad. He knew they would see the news eventually, but he didn't want to talk about it just then.

He stomped back to his room and threw himself face down onto his bed, smashing his face into his pillow. The mattress creaked a moment later as Pryna hopped up beside him. Stubbornly, she grabbed the edge of his shirt in her teeth and began tugging at it, bouncing backwards towards the edge of the mattress until with a groan Prompto sat back up.

Pryna barked at him and delicately lifted a paw to smack his knee until he reluctantly got dressed to go running.

*

Luna wasn't waiting for him when he got to the palace gate (an actual gate, replacing the old, destroyed one). Quietly, he let Pryna through and loped back home.

*

She still wasn't there after his afternoon run.

*

"I'm sure no one will even notice," his dad assured him that night, though his smile was tight and he didn't look convinced.

*

A week and a half after the attack, school was back in session. Just like always, Pryna met him in the morning, and he got to the school early enough to take a quick shower and get dressed in the locker room.

People stared at him in homeroom. No one said anything, but Prompto could practically see the gears turning in their heads. He could see them putting the pieces together.

*

On Tuesday, he found the picture from the newspaper taped to his locker at lunch time. He tore it into confetti and tossed it into the trash.

*

Gradually, his friends stopped talking to him. Worse than that, they started talking _about_ him. He heard them, a few times, wondering what he could've been trying to get from them, wondering why a Niff was spying on them.

He didn't bother trying to correct them. What good would it have done him?

*

He attended Luna's Ascension Ceremony, where she officially took up the role as the Oracle.

She looked beautiful.

She looked _terrified_.

Prompto met her afterwards, slipping into the palace while Ravus very conveniently needed the attention of the guard who might have stopped him. He found her in a sitting room, halfway out of her ceremonial regalia and slightly tangled as she tried to undress and gape at the trident that was suddenly hers simultaneously.

He slipped behind her and began unlacing the back of her dress, as Pryna and Umbra paced in circles around them.

"Holding up?" he asked eventually, as the bulk of her dress dropped to the floor. Impeccably clean, as always; there was no need to worry about the gown getting dirty.

She nodded tightly, her hands flexing open and closed at her sides. Dressed in just a small white slip and her stockings, with her hair falling loose from its trappings around her face, he could believe she was the Oracle.

*

Prompto stepped out of the shower in the locker room and tugged his uniform on halfheartedly, though his movements picked up more urgency when he heard scuffling in the locker room. Jacket still clutched in one hand, shoes draped over his neck by their laces, he loped out.

"What the hell are you doing?" he demanded, rounding the lockers. The two other boys froze like mesmenirs in a floodlight, up to their elbows in his backpack.

Prompto surged forward a step, and both of them fled as if he had pulled a knife on them.

*

He switched back to carrying his digital camera with him after that. Better something happen to that one, rather than the one Luna gave him.

*

He attended Ravus's coronation. It was a somber affair, and Ravus spent much of the proceedings looking as if he were being slowly gutted and flayed open for the audience.

Prompto wanted to say something to comfort his prince--his _king_ , but he couldn't think of anything that wouldn't sound trite or stupid, and he kept to himself in the end.

*

Prompto heard them whispering urgently, just after practice. He hushed Pryna as she tugged at the bottom of his shorts, and he pressed his back to the side of the bleachers and listened.

"We can't let him run in the meet tomorrow," Laurel, the team captain, insisted.

"He's the best one on the team," Ginosa reminded her, his tone impatient. "We'd be shooting ourselves in the foot."

"But what if he's been cheating somehow this whole time?" Laurel demanded, and though Prompto couldn't see them, he could hear her stomp her foot into the gravel. "He's not, like…an actual _person_ , so who knows what he can do? He could get the entire team disqualified."

"You're being a little harsh," Ginosa pointed out, but he didn't actually argue.

Prompto didn't stay to listen to anything else after that. He stopped by the school office and withdrew from the track team, citing family reasons that would make it inconvenient to continue with a smile.

Luna met him at the gate that afternoon, and though she tried to ask him what was wrong, he pasted a grin into place and laughed it off.

She had enough on her plate.

*

For two days, not much happened. And then…well, it was stupid, really.

They were dissecting rats in biology, and Prompto pulled his plastic gloves on over top of his standard fingerless gloves.

The teacher rolled her eyes. "Mr. Argentum, I think you can be parted from your aesthetic for a class period."

He swallowed, fingers clenching around the edge of the work table. "They aren't gonna get in the way," he tried, but the teacher seemed unmoved by the assurance.

"Honestly, Prompto--"

Cutting the teacher off, a high, hurried voice rose from the back of the room, spitting out in a rush, "He has a barcode on his wrist."

A hush fell over the classroom, and Prompto stared down at his hands, eyes wide and face pale. Slowly, he peeled his plastic gloves off and set them on the work table.

"I need to go to the nurse's office," he informed the teacher faintly, before he made his way towards the classroom door at a stiff, mechanical pace, all eyes on his back as he walked. The teacher didn't stop him.

_half off_

_half off_

_half off_

It echoed with each footstep.

*

There was an art room that was rarely used, and it was in there that Prompto hid for the rest of the day, until the final bell rang and he went to get changed.

Four of his classmates met him outside the locker room, two boys and two girls.

"Lemme see," one of the boys demanded. "Your arm."

"What-- _no_." Prompto ducked past them, shoulders hunched as he spat, "Fuck off."

Fingers wrapped around his elbow, and without thinking, he slammed it back. There was a grunt as it met ribs, and he wrenched his arm free and did what he did best; he ran. He could hear footsteps behind him, but as he careened through the hallways towards the main doors, he knew he was faster.

He didn't slow until he was shoving the main door open and stepping out into the school yard. He also didn't realize one of his pursuers had taken the side door and cut around until she body checked him into the grass and sat on his chest. It was easy for the other three to catch up after that.

One of the boys pinned his knees as he kicked, and the last two grabbed his arms and began pulling his gloves off as he squirmed. He could hear a few of the worn out seams give under the abuse.

"I found it!" one of the girls shouted, holding the offending wrist aloft, showing off the codeprint.

"What the hell?" one of the boys snapped. "What _are_ you?"

"You've known me since we were six!" Prompto snapped, hating the way his voice wobbled and his vision blurred.

"I didn't know _this_." The pressure around his wrist increased.

A dog was barking in the distance, rapidly getting closer. Prompto craned his neck, tipping his head back to watch Pryna bound closer, but in that moment, she was not his Pretty Girl. Her teeth were bared in savage outrage, her ears were flattened back against her head, and her hackles stood on end from the base of her skull to the base of her tail. She seemed to fill the entire school yard and each bark sounded as if it had been ripped from the heavens, as if there were something dark and eldritch lurking beneath her pristine coat.

The group pinning Prompto paled and scrambled away as Pryna got closer, and as she stood over him defensively and _snarled_ , they scattered.

Pryna calmed in increments as she watched them flee, until she looked down at Prompto, her tail giving a slow, hesitant wag.

"Hey, Pretty Girl," he breathed quietly, and he sat up just enough to throw his arms around her, pull her tight to his chest, and bury his face in her neck.

When he refused to move beyond that, no matter how she prodded at him or licked his hair, she threw her head back and howled. He didn't even bother to cover his ears.

At the sound of approaching paws, though, Prompto looked up into Umbra's eyes. Wordlessly, he hooked an arm around Umbra and reeled him in.

His ears popped, and suddenly all three of them were elsewhere, sitting on an immaculate white rug.

"…Prompto?"

With a jerk, he looked up at Luna, blinking slowly as he realized Umbra had just dumped him in the middle of her bedroom, before he clamped his eyes shut. The tears squeezed past anyway, dripping silently down his face.

She knelt in front of him as Pryna and Umbra moved out of the way, and mutely, he brandished his wrist at her. "They took my gloves," he managed, his voice quiet and unsteady.

Luna opened her arms, and Prompto flung himself at her, words pouring out in fits and starts as he explained everything that had happened since the attack. Afterwards, as he leaned back to arm's length so he could look at the clock, Luna looked thoughtful, as if her thoughts were lightyears away.

"My mom's gonna be worried," Prompto mumbled, looking from the clock to the window.

"Would you like Umbra to bring you home?" Luna asked, as the dog in question butted his head between them.

Slowly, Prompto shook his head. He felt…worn out and drained, but at the same time, everything vibrated. He needed to run.

Luna paused, and for a moment it looked like she would object. Then she simply sighed and reached back, pulling the long, white ribbon from her hair. Wordlessly, she wrapped it around Prompto's wrist and tied it in place.

"Be careful," she cautioned him, tipping his chin up with two fingers so he was looking at her.

He nodded dumbly, and when he left, it was with both dogs escorting him.

*

It was two in the morning and Prompto woke up with a jolt when he fell out of bed, thrashing and kicking, one arm cradled close to his chest. Hyperventilating, he stayed right there on the rug, legs tangled in his blanket.

His bedroom door opened and his dad peered in, rumpled and sleep-mussed. He stared for a moment at the pile of Prompto on the floor. "…Okay?"

"Yeah," Prompto sighed, sitting up on his elbows. "Papa--?" He paused, glancing away. When his dad made an inquisitive noise, Prompto mumbled, "I don't wanna go to school tomorrow."

For a moment, it looked as if his dad was going to argue, but then he simply looked at Prompto for a long moment, before he dragged his hand over his hair and heaved a slow sigh. "Alright," he agreed quietly. "I'll let your mom know."

Prompto offered him a fragile smile and a quiet, "Thanks, Papa."

*

He went running like normal in the morning, though he turned around and went home once he got to the palace gate. And come the afternoon, he made his way to the school with some reluctance. Rather than get too close, he whistled for Pryna from across the street.

Luna met him at the gate, and he sheepishly admitted, "I'm kinda playing hooky today. Just…couldn't do two days of it in a row."

Luna informed him, a bit cryptically, "I have a surprise for you. It…might make things better." She didn't elaborate beyond that, and soon enough he was on his way home once again.

*

That evening, a car pulled up outside his house. Prompto watched it through his bedroom window as it pulled to a halt on the street and the driver, dressed elegantly in white, climbed out and let the passengers in the backseat out. Prompto cocked his head to one side, eyebrows furrowing together in bewilderment when Luna and Ravus climbed out of the car.

By the time they were knocking on the front door, Prompto was already standing in the living room. His mom opened the door, and both she and his father stared like a pair of startled deer, before they remembered to bow, his father offering an anxious, "Your Majesty. Your Grace. It's an honor."

Ravus motioned impatiently for them to stand up and got straight to the point.

"We've come to speak with you about your son."

Immediately, his father's arm was around him protectively, and his mother was hurriedly babbling, "Whatever anyone has been saying about him, Your Majesty, it isn't true, we swear it, Prompto's a good boy, he would never hurt anyone--"

She fell silent abruptly as Ravus held up a hand. "That is not why we're here, Mrs. Argentum."

"We've come," Luna added, "to offer him a job."


	5. Wait A Second Let Me Catch My Breath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, this took eighty-five years. Partially because of work and partially because I was flying by the seat of my pants more for this chapter than the last few, but a lot of the delay was because... okay, this is going to sound _really_ petty and stupid and irrational, but when I posted If The Ring Fits, it had over a thousand hits in the first two or three days. And then along came Backed In Silver, and I worked on that for _weeks_ and that fic was my baby, and it seems like no one's actually read it. And that was really disheartening.
> 
> But that's my own baggage. Not to worry, though. This fic's not dead. I even have some idea of what I want to happen in the next two chapters. And, as ever, you're free to make suggestions if you wanna see something in particular.

"Assistant to the king," Prompto repeated, stuck somewhere between dubious and wildly incredulous.

"Yes," Luna confirmed, nodding once, her hands linked together behind her back. In the kitchen, Ravus had tea with Prompto's parents as he explained much the same thing to them. "He has more duties now than he's ever had before, and he had no time to prepare for them. On top of that, many of the personal staff he would have inherited from our mother did not survive the attack." Her expression dimmed slightly, before she cleared her throat and carried on. "He needs someone who can make it so he doesn't need to worry about the minutiae. You'll have your own room at the palace as well as the attention of my old tutors.”

"But what if I'm _bad_ at it?" Prompto asked, tone approaching something plaintive. "I've never done anything like this before!" 

Finally, Luna smiled gently. "Then your job will be to keep me company. I'm sure we can think of an official title. The Oracle's Confidante, perhaps?" 

"I don't understand why, though?" Prompto replied, slightly distraught at the special treatment. 

Luna's hands settled on his shoulders. "Because making sure you're safe is important." 

Prompto's mouth opened, but no words came out, and he closed his mouth once again with a click. He blinked at her dumbly, and she covered her mouth with one hand to ineffectually hide a laugh. 

"Will you try, at least?" she asked quietly. 

Slowly, Prompto nodded. "Okay," he agreed faintly. 

His parents, once it was explained that Prompto would be safe from the public in the palace, were quick to agree as well.  

* 

He was just trying it on a provisional basis. Prompto was adamant about that. So all he brought with him at first was a single duffel bag, so he could still guiltlessly decide it wasn’t for him and back out of it, if it came down to that. 

He was given a room—a suite, actually, with a bathroom and a small sitting room with a kitchenette attached to the bedroom—and a uniform. It was very… white. White shirt. White vest. White trousers. The boots were black and almost seemed to be screaming at him because of it. 

On his first day on the job, it seemed like everything was thrown into fast forward. There were names and schedules and routines to be memorized and everything was color coordinated and there were so many colors corresponding to so many people. Prompto handed the wrong folder to someone three times, and by lunch he was sure he was already a failure. 

But Luna joined them for lunch, and Prompto managed to wrangle a laugh out of her and something like a smile out of Ravus as he described Pryna’s heroics of just a few days before. And it seemed a little less _urgent_ after that. After all, if something was really _that_ important, they wouldn’t have handed it to an untried rookie like him.  

By the time dinner rolled around, he had at least handed everything to the right people and he’d only gotten lost twice more, and his work for the day seemed to be done. For the most part, at any rate. 

* 

The next few days move along at largely the same pace. To Prompto’s surprise, he memorized who was where and who did what and what went where and to whom without much of an issue. 

Gradually, more of Prompto’s stuff moved into his new suite. 

* 

“Mama, I promise, everything is _fine_. Everyone is nice. No one’s said anything about… you know. It’s all—what? _No!_ Well, I mean… he’s sort of giant and intimidating, but he’s pretty nice so far? I think, at least? …And yeah, dogs. …I’ll call in a couple days. Tell Papa I said hi.”  

* 

When Prompto handed over a stack of paperwork that was slightly smaller than it typically was, Ravus thumbed through it curiously. Clearing his throat, Prompto offered, “Luna told me to give her everything that wasn’t marked ‘urgent.’” 

There was something like a smile on Ravus’s face, tiny though it was. “Of course she did.” 

* 

‘Urgent’ had a very different meaning in the palace, Prompto was beginning to think. Half of the “urgent” notices didn’t actually require attention for weeks or months. Some weren’t even that important. 

(If he wasn’t actually supposed to read all of it quite so in-depth, well, no one had informed him of that and everyone seemed content to let him keep on keeping on.) 

He handed over a stack. “Urgent.” A second stack. “Urgently within the next six months.” A third stack, previously tucked under his arm. “And ‘I wanna jump the queue by calling my pet trash important.’” 

Ravus cleared his throat to mask something that was almost reminiscent of a laugh, and Prompto grinned as innocently as he could manage. 

* 

The Solstice was a subdued affair. Neither Luna nor Ravus felt especially festive without their mother at the helm of the festivities. They put in a token appearance at the festival, and of course the staff decorated the palace, but if the king or the Oracle had any plans, Prompto heard nothing about them. He didn’t ask. 

* 

It was two in the morning when Prompto was startled awake by Pryna barking in his ear, her muzzle resting on his pillow. He flailed his way awake and nearly fell out of bed, and he blinked at her as she trotted expectantly to his wardrobe. 

He pulled his uniform on in a bleary-eyed daze and followed Pryna to Ravus’s office at a jog. Luna was lurking fretfully around Ravus’s shoulder when he got there, and both of them looked to have dressed in a hurry. 

Ravus handed over a single folder without looking up from whatever had so thoroughly captured his attention on his desk. 

“To the guard captain,” the king stated tersely. “He’ll know what to do with it from there.” 

Prompto nodded out of habit and his fingers closed around the folder. When he backed out of the office, Pryna followed and Umbra met them in the hall, and both dogs escorted him to the captain’s quarters. Once the folder was in the proper hands, Umbra caught Prompto’s wrist before he could turn towards his suite again. 

Brow furrowing in confusion, he followed them to the council chamber, though he ground to a halt outside the door. 

‘ _Are you kidding me?_ ’ he mouthed down at them, gesturing emphatically at the door with both hands. Being the king’s assistant didn’t magically mean he was welcome in _council meetings_.  

Umbra tugged at his arm and Pryna prodded her nose against the door. 

With a groan, Prompto dragged a hand down his face before slowly reaching for the knob. He opened the door only just enough to slip into the room. It seemed full to bursting and even Luna and Ravus hardly spared him a glance, though everyone seemed content to let him ferry reports and messages around the room and from guards and couriers that periodically showed up at the door. 

A Nifillian patrol had been spotted in the mountains. True enough, they hadn’t _done_ anything yet, but given the recent attack, their presence alone was enough to set everyone on edge.  

But the fact that they hadn’t done anything made matters… complicated, Prompto was guessing. After three hours, all that had been accomplished was a lot of arguing over what to do, until a knock at the door interrupted them. There was a distracted nod from Luna as Prompto looked at her, and he slunk over to the door, opening it just enough to see a courier looking back at him. The courier shoved a slip of paper into Prompto’s hands and bolted, leaving Prompto to scurry to Ravus’s side with the message. 

The king read it silently, and a moment later he reported, “The danger has passed for the moment,” and the room itself seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. 

There were still decisions to be made. Prompto knew that. For the time being, no one even knew what the… _visit_ had been about. But Prompto left for his suite gratefully once he was excused.  

* 

“Mom—Ma— _Mama._ I’m fine—yeah, I know what the paper says, but—‘ _increased military presence’_ doesn’t mean we’re all gonna die, it just means the king is being paranoid.” Prompto sighed slowly. “Uh huh. Yeah, mostly. Love you, too.” He hung up and dragged a hand down his face.  

“Paranoid,” Ravus parroted, his tone perfectly deadpan and his gaze still roving over the papers in front of him. 

Prompto shrugged helplessly. “I had to tell her _something_ , unless you want her storming the palace.” 

“Ah, well. Carry on, then.” 

* 

Prompto started regularly attending meetings with the council after that. Hearing the talk out loud made it easier to parse the paperwork. Easier to pick out the important words, to tell the garnish from the main course. 

The first time he handed Ravus a cheatsheet with the rest of the paperwork, organized by page, topic, and sender, he actually got something like a _smile_.  

* 

“Ravus is in a good mood,” Luna remarked, her words deceptively mild. “I never thought I would see the day.” 

“Well, you know me,” Prompto sighed loftily. “I’m a miracle worker.” 

Luna’s eyebrows rose. “So you could take over for _me_ for a few days, then?”  

Prompto cleared his throat sharply. “I, ah. I wouldn’t go _that_ far.”  

Luna clicked her tongue. “A shame when peddlers of pretend miracles can operate so openly,” she sighed. 

Prompto shrugged blithely. “A con man’s gotta make a living somehow.” 

Luna swatted at him lightly with the backs of her fingers. 

* 

His mother sniffled and wiped her eyes the entire time she helped Prompto pack up the little that still remained in his bedroom at the house. His dad tried to play it casual, but he kept double- and triple-checking everything, ignoring the fact that at that point there was nothing critical left to pack. 

By the end of the evening, the work was done and Prompto was pretty sure he was going to start crying, too. 

* 

He mentioned it to Luna, casually, without much of a thought. And though her smile was genuine enough, there was something distant in her gaze. 

“…Sorry,” he offered afterwards, staring at his shoes. 

She squeezed his shoulder and tipped his chin up. “It would be rather unreasonable if I forbid you from talking about your parents, wouldn’t it?” 

“I would be pretty tempted,” he admitted, voice low and more of a mumble. But he shook his head minutely and offered a smile. 

“We should go get dinner.” 

* 

Luna had her own aids and guards. Of course she did; she was the Oracle and she was their princess. The idea of leaving her to fend for herself, regardless of how capable they knew her to be, was practically anathema. Even so, her aids were not immune to the ordinary illnesses of men, and when one of them came down with the flu, Ravus instead sent Prompto with her for the day. 

He had never actually seen the effects of the Starscourge up close. He had never seen her heal anyone. People tried to capture it on film, now and then, but she was always insistent that the cameras stay off until after she was finished. 

He wasn’t expecting the way she paled, or the way she needed to lean on him to keep her balance when she was done. For a moment, it seemed she might blow away with the next breeze, and Prompto clung to her hand like a vise. 

“Is it always like that?” he asked quietly that evening, sitting on a couch in her sitting room. 

“Most often,” she replied lowly. She still sounded so tired. 

Prompto made a low noise of distress. Luna watched him in quiet curiosity as he got to his feet and bustled into her bedroom proper. Her expression softened with amusement as he emerged again with her spare blanket and an armload of pillows, but she said nothing still, watching as he turned the couch into a lopsided fort. 

He caught her hand afterwards and gave it an expectant tug. Dutifully, she settled inside the fort, though her eyebrows rose in confusion when Prompto left the room. 

…Just long enough to prepare two mugs of tea and return. He joined her in the fort and pressed a mug into her hands. 

“This,” he gestured around with his free hand, “is a No Oracle Zone,” he explained. “There is no Oracleing inside the fort.” 

“Is that so?” Luna wondered wryly. “Is that an order, my lord?” 

Prompto’s face heated and he nearly took it back, but he paused, and steeled himself, and nodded once, decisively. “Yes,” he decided. “Yes it is.” 

“Well,” Luna sighed, “I would hate to go against a direct order.” She smiled ruefully. “I suppose you’ve won this round.” 

Prompto nodded once in satisfaction. 

* 

Prompto was mostly talking to _himself_ as he shuffled papers into categories, grumbling, “So many of these are common sense or pointless or just touching base. You could just teach me how to forge your signature and you’d save so much time.”  

It was around then that he realized that he was, in fact, still audible, and he looked up slowly. “Your Majesty, uh…” He trailed off at the thoughtful look on Ravus’s face. 

“Find a pen,” Ravus decided after a moment. 

* 

Luna was twenty and Prompto had no idea what to get her. If she _wanted_ anything, she hadn’t mentioned it, and Prompto was pretty sure he couldn’t manage anything she _needed_.  

He wound up begging one of the cooks to help him put a picnic together in exchange for taking pictures of her newborn niece on his next day off, and he and Luna had lunch in the flower field. Pryna had no less than three flower crowns by the end and she couldn’t have been more pleased with herself. 

They ambushed Ravus for dessert. It was the only way to make sure he didn’t conveniently have something he needed to do as soon as they insinuated they wanted him to be marginally social. 

* 

A few days later, Prompto left a folder of pictures from the entire year in the fort. It had migrated from the couch in the sitting room to a rug in the bedroom, right in front of the largest window, looking out into the mountains. 

The next time he was in the room, half of the the pictures had found their way to places of honor on the tables and walls. 

* 

Prompto was sixteen, and when he opened the long, narrow box that Luna handed him over breakfast, he almost squealed. The gloves were bright red, leather, fingerless, and went clear up to his elbows. 

“Pretend one of them is from Ravus,” Luna instructed him drolly. 

The king steadfastly ignored them. 

* 

Prompto unboxed the boots from his parents that evening. Bright red. Leather. Clear up to his knees. He was sensing a theme, so he didn’t bother _asking_ if he could customize his uniform.  

He got his mom to help him modify a red flannel into a vest. Worn under his uniform vest, it fit perfectly, only the tails and the collar of it visible. He looked pretty cool, he figured. And he felt more like himself. 

*  

Prompto was fairly sure the Solstice was never going to be a particularly cheerful time of year within the palace. He understood. 

He went home on the eve of the Solstice to have dinner with his parents and to listen to his mother gush about his pictures of the more harmless parts of the palace. 

He didn’t return to the palace until late on the Solstice, and when he went to Luna’s suite to let her know he was back, he found her sitting in the fort. 

“There is no Oracleing inside the fort,” she recited, absentmindedly stroking a hand over Pryna’s head. “Isn’t that right?” 

“Right,” Prompto agreed quietly. “It was a direct order.” 

Luna hummed in agreement.  

“How was your Solstice?” she asked after a moment. “Are you parents well?” 

“They’re great,” Prompto assured her. “I mean, they miss having me around, but it was nice.” 

Luna smiled faintly. “I’m glad.” 

* 

Ravus’s office door was closed. Though light crept out of the gap beneath the door, there was no answer when Prompto knocked. 

Eventually, he returned to his suite.

* 

Things were going… well. Prompto was good at his job, to his own continual amazement. Even if being able to forge the king’s signature, memorize three different schedules at a minimum of two weeks out, and sprint from one end of the palace to the other and back again in about five minutes were not quite the things he ever expected to be amongst his skill set. 

He had no complaints, all things considered. 

He just wished he had known in advance _all_ of the things his duty would require of him.


	6. The Wind Is On the Rise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eeeeegggggh, not really a huge fan of this chapter. Honestly, I finished writing it like two weeks ago and it took me an eternity to get it typed (yes, I write longhand). And it just...I dunno, this chapter feels weird? It feels very in-between-y.
> 
> But!
> 
> I know what's happening in, like, the next three chapters. Vaguely, at any rate. I always just kinda iron out the specifics as I go, and as ever people are welcome to ask about things they want to see in the future in comments.
> 
> CONTENT WARNINGS: Some gore, though it's brief in both cases.

During an average day, Prompto’s job brought him in contact with numerous other staff members. Whether it was for work, as was the case with guards and other aids and assistants, or simply saying hello to the cleaning and cooking staff in passing. None of that was out of the ordinary.

What was out of the ordinary was when other staff members actively sought him out.

Prompto had paused in the hall, turning scarlet up to his hairline as a guard wondered if he was old enough for any _mischief_ before sighing lamentably when Prompto pointed out that he was only seventeen. As Prompto turned to go, though, he ground to a halt again when he nearly walked right into Amity. She was one of Luna’s ladies maids, and rarely seen on her own. She was fretful and fidgeting, and she already had a grip on Prompto’s wrist.

“Mr. Argentum—one of His Majesty’s couriers. A few of us noticed we didn’t recognize him, but we lost track of him and none of us are allowed in His Majesty’s office.”

Prompto hardly let her finish before he was moving, sparing only a glance over his shoulder to see the guard bolt down the hall, before he turned and broke into a sprint.

The run to Ravus’s office had never seemed longer. He didn’t bother knocking, instead simply throwing the door open and stumbling inside as he tripped to a halt. There was a courier inside, though Prompto didn’t recognize his face.

Ravus looked up sharply, impatience painting itself across his features at the abrupt intrusion. His lips parted around an admonishment, but his gaze was drawn to the courier instead.

“Who—?”

“Your Majesty—“

Prompto drew in a strangled breath as the man in the courier’s uniform withdrew a gun from within his jacket.

The office itself seemed to be holding its breath for just a split second, and then everything happened all at once.

Prompto lunged and crashed into the assassin’s side, as Ravus reached for the knife in his desk and the assassin’s finger squeezed the trigger.

The gun jerked sideways with Prompto’s impact and the bullet ripped through Ravus’s shoulder rather than his chest, spraying blood over the back of the chair and the wall behind it. Prompto and the assassin landed in a heap on the rug, and Ravus lifted his knife and hurled it. The assassin’s arm spasmed as the blade sank into it, and the gun landed on the floor with a muffled thump, sitting there just long enough for Prompto to snatch it up, his hands shaking as he turned it on the assassin.

Placidly, the assassin regarded him…and then the front of his skull exploded from the inside. Prompto yelped and flinched away, blood and brain matter painting itself across the side of his face, and the assassin’s body crumpled.

Slowly, Ravus sagged back in his chair, one arm hanging limply over the side of it. “You can put it down now, Prompto,” he stated faintly.

The gun tumbled nervelessly from Prompto’s hands and he jerked back to the present as it hit the floor, and he darted to Ravus’s side. It felt as if hours had passed by the time the guards spilled into the room with Luna rushing at their heels. A glance at the clock as Prompto was led from the room showed that it had only been a few minutes.

*

Prompto sank down to the floor of the shower, hands tucked behind his knees so he would stop scrubbing before he started ripping the skin from his face.

The water was cold by the time he managed to pick himself up off of the floor.

*

“Mama— _Mama_ , I’m not automatically involved every time there’s a dust up,” Prompto soothed, holding the phone in a white-knuckled grip with both hands. “I promise, I was nowhere near it when it all went down.”

Luna’s eyebrows rose and her expression turned faintly incredulous. Prompto lifted a finger to his lips, silently shushing her, and she held both hands up in a pacifying gesture.

It was a very long conversation before his mother was ready to hang up the phone.

*

“—some sort of internal explosive, probably activated with a false tooth.”

Prompto listened silently from around the corner as the coroner filled Luna in.

“And while there were… _limited_ remains to examine, Your Grace, we found evidence of reconstructive surgery. We suspect our would-be assassin was a remodeled magitek trooper.”

Luna nodded slowly. “You have my thanks,” she offered, slightly belatedly. “Keep me apprised of anything else.”

“Of course, Your Grace.”

The coroner bowed at the waist and made his exit at the clear dismissal.

Prompto slowly made his way out of his lurking spot. Luna didn’t seem surprised when he came to a halt at her side.

“How’s His Majesty?” Prompto wondered, trying for mild and instead simply sounding sort of constipated.

“Well enough,” Luna sighed. “His physician is refusing to let him him leave the medical wing until she knows there won’t be any complications.” She smiled faintly. “So of course he’s driving the entire medical staff to distraction.”

Prompto snorted out a laugh, masking it as a cough behind one hand. “Sounds like he’ll be right as rain in no time, then.”

*

Prompto lurked in the hallway, hardly even daring to peer into the room Ravus was sitting in. The king’s shoulder and arm were swathed in bandages and Luna was fretting at him quietly from his bedside. Prompto couldn’t quite hear what they were saying, though from the look on Ravus’s face, he seemed to consider the entire to-do with the doctors and staying in the medical wing overnight to be a bit much. As if he had not been shot straight through the shoulder in a botched assassination attempt.

Or rather, Prompto couldn’t hear them until Ravus pitched his voice louder to say, “And do let Prompto know that all is well.”

With a noise that he would stridently deny was a squeak, Prompto fled.

*

The bullet had gone through and through. That much was true enough. But the gunshot wound had turned black by morning, and the king was nearly delirious with pain. Poison of some sort, slow acting and painful. A contingency plan.

Despite countless tests, no one knew what it was. “Our best guess is that it was custom tailored in a Niflheim lab,” Ravus’s doctor explained. “We’re doing all we can, but we’re keeping him asleep in the meantime. Considering the pain, it would be needlessly cruel otherwise, and you and I both know that pain or not, getting him to sit still would be a hopeless cause, and we don’t need him speeding its course.”

Luna listened quietly, her expression distant and drawn. She excused the doctor with a motion of her hand before looking over her shoulder at Prompto.

“…Orders, Your Highness?” he asked quietly.

For just a second, Luna looked so tired. But she sighed slowly, and her expression steeled.

“No one outside the palace can know.”

*

“This guy always rambles until the last two paragraphs,” Prompto groused, sorting through his usual allotment of the king’s paperwork. “Is there a word quota for this stuff or something?”

*

Slowly, the veins surrounding the wound began to turn black, spreading gradually down Ravus arm and towards his chest. Slowly, the skin around the wound paled before turning a mottled green-grey.

The king continued to sleep.

*

“Ignore him,” Luna sighed, shoving an envelope aside. “Let him stew in silence for a few weeks and he’ll panic and become much more cooperative. He always does.”

Steadily, Ravus’s work got done.

*

Prompto peered into Luna’s room and found her in the fort, staring out the window as she traced a finger over the flower on the notebook in her lap with slow, aimless motions.

Prompto rapped his knuckles against the doorframe and Luna looked up slowly, as if she were emerging from a trance, pulling the book closer to her chest.

She was quiet as Umbra hopped down from the bed and trotted over. Daintily, he took the notebook in his teeth and meandered out of the room.

Finally, Luna stated quietly, “Ravus is in surgery. I authorized it this afternoon.” Her eyes were damp, but her voice was steady. Resigned. “He’s going to be so angry with me.”

Prompto knelt on the floor and shuffled into the fort, until his shoulder was pressed to hers. Luna took his hand, lacing their fingers together and squeezing.

*

When the king awoke, it was to find that his left arm was gone, removed at the shoulder before the infection could spread too far—before it could get to his heart.

Perhaps a cure might have been found eventually, but it wouldn’t have been much of a victory if it only arrived posthumously.

He sat alone for a time as Luna waffled outside the room, until Prompto all but bodily shoved her through the door. Even then, she managed to make her entrance look deliberate.

Prompto peered around the edge of the door as Luna paused within arm’s reach of the hospital bed. The silence seemed to stretch on for an eternity, until at last Luna offered, in a voice that wavered only slightly, “I’m sorry.”

Ravus’s response was possibly the most emphatic eye roll Prompto had ever witnessed, and he seized the nearest thing at hand—a pen on the side table—and whipped it at his sister’s head.

Luna ducked aside to let it pass and clatter to the floor, and in her distraction, Ravus reached out with his remaining hand, catching Luna’s in his own. Luna let herself be drawn closer to the bed as he squeezed her fingers, and Prompto quietly retreated.

*

Time passed, as it was always wont to do. Ravus left the hospital, albeit sooner than his doctor would have recommended. And Prompto did his job, just as he always did. But not everything returned to normal.

Ravus had always been left handed, and Prompto found himself adopting the role of scribe as the king learned how to write with his right hand in a way that could passably be called legible.

And he would stumble every so often, overcompensating when he found himself several pounds lighter on one side than he expected to be. Prompto never commented, and he didn’t protest on the spare few occasions when the king caught his balance on Prompto’s shoulder.

Ravus’s fuse…shortened over time. His temper had never been particularly loud before—his irritation or impatience were frequently sharp but quiet—but he grew snappish by larger turns each time someone stared at the way his coat sleeve hung empty at his side, each time his sword tumbled from his off hand no matter how his combat trainer-turned-physical therapist assured him he was improving at a remarkable pace.

Prompto didn’t want to say he was walking on eggshells, but the facts disagreed with him. He didn’t complain, though, even as anxiety ate at his sleep schedule. In light of everything else going on, it seemed like he had so little to complain about.

*

Prompto was roughly half awake, sitting on his couch and contemplating the window blearily when his door opened and Luna breezed in. She took a seat beside him, and then toppled over across his lap. Prompto petted her hair.

“Ravus?” he wondered sleepily.

Luna squealed between her teeth, partially muffled by the couch cushion.

Prompto nodded sagely regardless of the fact that she wasn’t looking at him. “‘Kay. Want some coffee?”

“…That would be lovely.”

*

Prompto dropped a mug one day, spilling tea across the rug in Ravus’s office.

“Do you need a break until you can handle the simplest aspects of your job again?” Ravus groused as Prompto crouched to clean uptake mess.

Prompto flinched and the mug dropped from his fingers once again. He swallowed and mumbled towards the rug, “It won’t happen again, Your Majesty.”

Slowly, Prompto peeked up as Ravus sighed slowly and sagged back in his chair, lifting his hand to rub his forehead as if to stave off a growing headache.

“That was uncalled for,” he acknowledged, and his tone had gentled slightly. Prompto glanced away again.

Ravus straightened up in his seat again as he mused slowly, “I presume, should I grant you permission to inform me of when I’m being a complete shit heel, you would not take the opportunity.”

“Not out loud, Your Majesty,” Prompto confirmed before he could wrestle the words back under control, and he could feel his face heating.

Ravus sighed out something that wasn’t quite a laugh, though it was as close as he had come in a rather long time. “As I suspected.”

Hesitantly, Prompto offered a crooked smile.

*

“Prompto.”

“What’s wrong?” The words left his mouth in a hurry. He could always tell when Lunafreya was speaking to him not as Luna, but as the princess of Tenebrae.

She glanced aside for a brief moment before she cleared her throat and her expression steeled slightly.

“My family has asked a great deal of you,” she acknowledged quietly, “but I’m afraid I need to ask for another favor.”

“Anything you need,” Prompto agreed immediately, and a ghost of a smile slid across Luna’s features for a split second.

“My brother’s personal staff needs to undergo some…temporary pruning,” she explained carefully. “Even considering past losses, many of them have still known him since he was a child or a teenager. They mean well, of course, but it colors how they react to him and this entire situation. He needs—“ She paused for a breath. “…I would appreciate it if someone was at his side throughout the day, but they would have to be someone who could see him struggle and still see their king, rather than the boy they helped raise.”

“Of course,” Prompto agreed, with open bemusement. If that was it, why did she seem so serious?

“It will mean an increase in your duties across the board,” she pointed out. “Including as protection detail.” She settled a meaningful look on him. “You would need to undergo combat training.”

The world seemed to slow down for a moment as Prompto processed those words, as if they were in some foreign language.

Luna’s words picked up speed as she hurried to explain, “It is your decision, of course. No one will order you into it. And you can have all the time you need to consider—“

“I’ll do it.” He didn’t mean to cut her off, but the words were out before he could help it.

But it only made sense, didn’t it? His princess. His king. His _friends_. One could argue that he had already repaid all that he owed them, but that didn’t seem important.

“I’ll do it,” he repeated, slower and steadier.

“You’re certain?” Luna asked, as if she was still trying so hard not to get her hopes up.

“Positive,” Prompto assured her, and it was like a weight dropped off of her shoulders all at once.

It seemed a bit backwards when she was the one throwing herself into his arms.

*

The trial and error of finding a weapon didn’t last long. The basics of hand-to-hand were easy enough to grasp, if a bit cumbersome at first. He flailed around with a few bladed weapons at first, without much luck. And then his trainer—Ravus’s trainer—put a pair of revolvers into his hands and something clicked.

His aim was impeccable. He told himself it was because of his photography. He got the knack of disassembling and cleaning them in an instant. He told himself it wasn’t so different from a vintage camera. He told himself it wasn’t intrinsic to _who he was_.

On the whole, it wasn’t too hard to put his worries out of his head. Between weapons training, new duties, and training for that expanded list of duties, he hardly even had time to think.

It wasn’t great for his sleep schedule.

*

“What? Sorry, Mama, I zoned out a little…Oh yeah, everything’s great. Wha—I’m _fine_ , Mama. _Yes_ , really. I promise.”

*

When the king healed enough to be fitted with a prosthetic, Prompto expected it to fix more issues than it really did. It mostly weighed as much as an arm. It was in the same place as an arm. It had the same general look of an arm. But it offered no feedback and its ability to grip things was inconsistent at best. The harness that held the arm to what was left of his shoulder wasn’t the most comfortable, and learning to use it required more visits with a physical therapist than learning how to not have an arm.

Yes, Prompto knew all of Ravus’s complaints by heart. With inflections included.

Even so, its presence seemed to be appreciated, and Prompto remained loyally at his side. ‘Good as new’ hadn’t quite happened yet.

*

Prompto had assumed he was good at reading the room. He had been decent enough at it in school, at least, until…certain events.

He learned otherwise swiftly.

There was an art to learning the difference between someone who was nervous or angry or jumpy because they were planning something, or for unrelated reasons. There was an art to learning when someone was a threat, even when all signs pointed in the other direction.

Prompto was a quick study, and his trainers were a dedicated bunch, using outings with Luna to train him when there was a safety net of her regular retinue at hand. But still, the fear of messing up loomed over his head.

He developed more of a taste for coffee.

*

“What’s that?”

As Prompto asked, Umbra trotted off with the notebook in his mouth and Luna smiled unconsciously.

“When I was young, I met a boy named Noctis,” she answered, her voice distant with fond reminiscence.

The name stirred some sort of recollection in Prompto’s thoughts, though he couldn’t recall _what_ just then.

“He was here with his father,” Luna carried on, turning to face Prompto properly, “to be healed by my mother. They went home, of course, and since then life has pulled us in different directions, but we’ve kept in touch over the years.”

Finally, it clicked.

“Wait—Noctis—the Lucian prince?”

Luna nodded once, and Prompto blinked at her, bemused, before he said, “You’ve never brought him up.”

Luna’s gaze darted to the side and smiled quietly, small and impossibly fond. She picked her words carefully as she explained, “What exists between Noctis and I is…unique.”

“Oh.” Prompto tried not to feel the bubble of jealousy that welled up in his chest, and Luna carried onward.

“I asked for Lucian assistance in identifying a cure for the poison, and it seems one has been synthesized at last.”

“Just a day late and a gil short,” Prompto drawled in reply, and for a moment Luna looked baffled by the ire behind the observation, and Prompto felt his face heating.

Cautiously, Luna added, “I wanted you to hear the good news before half the palace was shouting about it. Ravus will pretend he doesn’t care, of course, but this _is_ good news. No one else must suffer the way he did.”

Prompto nodded stiffly and pasted a smile into place. Luna looked concerned for a moment longer, eyes slightly narrowed and a crease furrowed into her brow, before she set a hand on his shoulder and excused him from the room.

*

“Do you know Noctis?” It was probably dumb to ask, but the words were already out of Prompto’s mouth.

“Prince Noctis,” Ravus corrected disinterestedly, not even bothering to look up from the missive. “I’ve not seen him since he was a young boy, and my correspondences with Lucis have all been with his father. You’ve read some of them.”

“Any idea what he’s like?” Prompto wondered, trying for casual as he cleaned a shelf. He succeeded well enough at the cleaning, but not so much at the ease. “Uh—Noc—Prince Noctis, I mean.”

Finally, Ravus gave up on reading, sighing out an impatient breath through his nose as he looked up. “Luna mentioned him,” he guessed. “And you’re prying.”

Prompto shuffled in place, tapping one foot against the ground and fiddling with one of the items on the shelf. “She never brought him up before,” he mumbled reluctantly.

“You don’t know him, and she would need to catch you up on years of correspondence,” Ravus stated simply. “Stop pouting over something that isn’t a snub.”

Prompto ducked his head back towards his tidying.

*

When it came to carrying on a conversation, Ravus was not ideal.

When it came to speaking to his people, it was another story entirely. Prompto wished he could have listened more closely as the king explained the attempt on his life and his subsequent absence from the public eye, but his attention was caught up in the crowd, eyes peeled and roaming for anything suspicious.

He spotted his parents, briefly. He recognized some of his old classmates. His parents’ neighbors. A few teachers.

And a man in a hood.

The hood itself was nothing unusual; it was raining. All Prompto could see was the bottom half of the man’s face, but _something_ was familiar all the same.

There was security all over the place. Getting a guard’s attention was just a matter of catching the nearest guard’s eye and motioning in the general direction of the suspect. So his concern about things getting out of hand _during_ the speech was minimal. Afterwards, however? That had Prompto concerned.

He couldn’t slow or stop time, though, so inevitably the speech did indeed come to an end. And things seemed to be going well enough at first, at least until Prompto heard an outcry from the crowd, and heavy steps rounding the corner after them.

When the MT came to a halt, he still looked like Prompto. That was probably what the hood was for, Prompto supposed.

Some sort of cogs were definitely turning in the MT’s head as he stared at Prompto’s face, though he came up short when Prompto remained stubbornly in his path as the rest of the guards steadily closed in.

Prompto’s revolver was comfortable in his hand. He focused on that, rather than the fact that he was pointing it at a face almost identical to his own.

Thoughtfully, the MT looked around. Took note of his lack of options. And then looked contemplatively back at Prompto. His jaw clenched as he chomped down on something.

Prompto skittered back several feet, getting well out of range when the front of the MT’s face exploded into pieces. The rest of the body crumpled to the ground with a wet, meaty smack, and Prompto cringed at the sound.

Everything was silent for a few moments, taut as a wire. And then Ravus observed blandly, “Quite an eventful day.”

Prompto scuffed one heel against the ground, as if to scrape something off of it, and his eyebrows rose as he gave His Majesty a rather pointed look.

Ravus held a hand up in surrender and let himself be shepherded away.

*

Prompto face-planted on the rug in the fort. A moment passed before Luna joined him, patting his head consolingly.

“Is there a problem?”

Prompto turned his head so his cheek was against the carpet. “That last attempt seemed too half-assed. And I? Am stressing about it.”

“I think it was largely a reminder that they’re still displeased with my brother’s continued existence. The magitek soldiers are—“

“Cannon fodder, I know. They can be wasted to make a point.”

“Not how I would have phrased it,” she returned wryly.

“Considered to be disposable,” Prompto corrected, pitching his voice to a falsetto. He snorted when Luna smacked his shoulder with the back of her hand.

Eventually he rolled over onto his back, hands linked together beneath his head. “Why the focus on Tenebrae, anyway?” he groused. “Don’t they have something better to do?”

“No,” Luna answered frankly. “Most everywhere else is theirs. Even Accordo is a Nifilian territory, despite playacting at borrowed autonomy, and Lucis is herded closer and closer to its capital city each day.”

“…Oh. Right.”

Prompto sighed slowly and stared up at the blanket that made the fort’s ceiling.

*

“Sooo,” Prompto began, voice too casual, “what happens when someone realizes I’m an MT and shoots me? Or stabs me, I guess.”

“You aren’t an MT,” Ravus pointed out distractedly, shuffling through a drawer in his desk. “At least keep writing.”

Prompto ducked his head back towards the page, pen scratching over it rapidly for a moment, until he looked up again. “I was made to be an MT, probably,” he reasoned. “So what’s the difference?”

“The presence of a personality and a marked lack of homicidal intent. Think of a polite way to say we aren’t interested.” Ravus paused, gaze drifting thoughtfully towards the ceiling as Prompto wrote. “And were I to offend you, I have my doubts that your skull would explode, though I suppose we could test it.”

“I’ll pass,” Prompto sighed, rolling his eyes. “I was being serious, though. Eventually someone will make the connection.” He set the pen and clipboard down.

“The palace staff know you,” Ravus reminded him as he closed the drawer, “and when you’re outside its walls, rarely are you not with myself or Lunafreya. The risk of a mistaken identity seems rather low.”

Prompto was quiet as he mulled that statement over. It hadn’t quite occurred to him, save for in a vague and distant sense, that his role as protector was also for his own protection.

*

Prompto remembered it was his birthday when he got a phone call from his parents. Other than assuring them he would try to be there for dinner, he hardly got a word in edgewise as they gushed about how their little boy was an adult, passing the phone back and forth so they both could say their fill.

It was nearly forty minutes before Prompto hung up, and he was grinning fit to split his face in half by the time he did, at least until he nearly had a heart attack when he spotted Luna sitting peacefully on his couch.

“How long have you been there?” he practically yowled, voice half an octave higher than usual.

She smiled pleasantly. “I’m certain Ravus will let you take the evening off. Would you come with me?”

“…Okay?”

She allowed him about three minutes to get dressed and ready before she grabbed his hand and began towing him along.

“You’ve given much to my family,” she began eventually, still towing him after her. “I thought it was time we give something back.”

“But you’ve already—“

She shushed him as the stables came into view, and she picked up the pace until they breezed through the doors, pulling all the while. Leading him past her own silver-white chocobo Nova and Ravus’s enormous mercury black Aquila, to a third bird that he didn’t recognize.

She was only a little larger than Nova, with feathers such a pale yellow they were nearly white. Prompto stared at her in open wonder until Luna gestured him forward with an expectant motion of her hand.

“She…?” Prompto trailed off in disbelief.

“She’s yours,” Luna confirmed quietly.

Prompto tripped forward the last few steps to the bird— _his_ bird—until he was standing just outside her stall.

“What will you call her?” Luna wondered.

She didn’t get an answer immediately, as Prompto was too busy laughing while the bird preened a strand of his hair, until he took her face in both hands and held her back at a polite distance.

“Paisley,” he decided eventually, before turning his hopeful gaze on Luna. “Can we go for a ride?”

*

Prompto was _an adult_. Admittedly, he didn’t feel much different than before and he was still treated as the baby of the palace staff, so he supposed being an adult wasn’t actually that fascinating.

And he suddenly had a bizarre amount of things to sign, as he was abruptly old enough to have an official say in any aspect of his life. He had a strange urge to ask how much of the paperwork his parents had been confused by.

Amazing, the difference a day could make. He adjusted quickly enough, though. Paperwork wasn’t exactly something new.

And everything seemed…kind of normal. Or as close to normal as they were ever likely to be.

And then Pryna woke him up one morning, bouncing insistently against his hip until he groaned and rolled out of bed. He had only a moment to scowl at the window as he realized the sun was hardly even rising, before Pryna began to whine. She yapped out a shrill bark, and Prompto flapped a tired hand at her and set about getting dressed.

Pryna waited just long enough for him to make toast, but not to actually eat it, and Prompto had to eat it on the go as he followed her at a jog to Luna’s suite.

Luna was sitting on the couch when they arrived, the red notebook on her lap and Umbra at her feet. She was smiling quietly as she informed Prompto, “You need to pack. We’re heading to the Lucian capital.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're finally gonna get the rest of the cast!
> 
> Also, maybe consider clicking [this link](https://notanicequeen.tumblr.com/post/167109895346/reminder)?


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